NEWS\\\


Driver abuse is rife in freight industry, say unions


Road transport companies are exploiting the Covid crisis to exploit truck drivers across Europe, according to a report by the International Transport Workers’ Federation and affi liated trade unions, published on 25 June. It


alleges that drivers are being


traffi cked from outside the EU and made to sign false documentation, oſt en in languages that they do not understand, while being forced to live in their vehicles for months on end.


ITF general secretary Stephen


Cotton said that the European road transport industry had long been plagued by abuses but the Covid 19 crisis has exacerbated them. He said: “Human traffi cking is a


growing problem in the industry, and we’ve documented multiple cases where drivers from outside the EU have been traffi cked into Eastern European countries, sign contracts at the bottom of complex subcontracting chains, and are then forced to work almost exclusively in Western Europe with little pay, false documentation and with no way out.” ITF says its investigation has


revealed that transport companies are exploiting the lack of checks and controls by enforcement authorities during the pandemic. It said that drivers from Ukraine,


Belarus, Uzbekistan, Turkey, the Philippines


and other non-EU countries being employed on


Eastern European contracts but working in Western Europe. They are forced to sign contracts


in languages they cannot read and are being paid around €100-600 per month, oſt en having to rest, sleep, eat and live in their vehicles for months. Many were supplied with


false documentation about their employment


status and were


threatened with violence and fi nancial penalties if they alerted the authorities. Drivers are provided with little or


no personal protective equipment while the exemptions to driving and resting time regulations introduced during the crisis have led to employers coercing drivers to work more dangerous hours. Drivers are not receiving sick pay. A fi lm produced in conjunction


with the report detailed numerous abuses of drivers and illegal practices. These included drivers being forced to live in their truck cabs for months on end, oſt en with barely enough cash to buy food, trucks being operated without eff ective tachographs, uninspected and uninsured vehicles and broken heaters in mid-winter. A group of eight Filipino drivers


were forced to live in a small fl at. One when he asked to be paid his promised salary was told by his employer: “I will break your neck” – and worse. One group of drivers had now


been declared victims of human traffi cking by the Netherlands authorities. However, enforcement in Europe was oſt en very weak. One driver with an expired visa and work permit was simply told to leave the country by the Dutch labour inspection authority, instead


Issue 5 2020 - Freight Business Journal


of action being taken against his employer. Asked whether the EU’s


recently agreed Mobility Package addressed any of the unions’ concerns, lead investigator Edwin Atema, from the FNV-VNB union, said: “Abuse already happens under the current legislation. It’s all about enforcement.” The package did nothing to


address the issue of enforcement and in some respects actually


reduced obligations. He also warned that the unions


would start to name and shame multinational companies that abused drivers, or who allowed it to happen. He said that such companies, and freight forwarders, may not be directly involved in transport operations, he likened them to ‘fences’ that sell on stolen goods.


ITF inland transport secretary, Noel Coard, said that multinational


3


companies are unaware or uninterested of what really happens in their subcontracted transport. He said: “There is not one multinational transporting goods in the EU that can guarantee that these issues are not in in their supply chain.” In response, the International


Road Transport Union said: “People are at the core of everything we do – the safety and well-being of our


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